The Bloomberg administration’s revised plans to put an expanded eating establishment in the northern end of Union Square Park is angering some lawmakers, park advocates, and area residents.

Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, a Democrat who represents the area, predicted yesterday that the new Parks Department plan would fail.

“There are some things that are wrong to sell. Selling off park land for commercial use is one of them,” Mr. Gottfried told The New York Sun in a telephone interview from Albany.

Mr. Gottfried said that the area around Union Square has one of the highest concentrations of restaurants in the city. Adding another one, he said, would be “bad public policy.”

Initially, the city’s plan called for a year-round restaurant after a refurbishment of a crumbling 80-year old pavilion on the park’s north end. Then, in response to neighborhood concerns, the city announced last summer that the project would house a “seasonal” restaurant between April and October. The new plan also would nearly triple the amount of space devoted to playgrounds, add new bathrooms, and upgrade the area that houses the park’s famous weekly farmer’s market.

Last night, the parks committee of Manhattan’s Community Board 5 and about 75 members of the public heard a detailed presentation by the Parks Department on the revised $14.5 million Union Square Park renovation project.

The full community board is expected to vote on the project on February 9 and the city hopes to begin construction this fall.

Several other elected officials are opposing the revised plan, including the president of Manhattan, Scott Stringer, and the City Council member who represents the area, Rosie Mendez.

The Parks Department said the restaurant would be a welcome amenity for the community. Officials said they are hopeful it would liven up the park’s north end, which they said looks dead and rundown when the farmer’s market is not operating.

Since 1994, a restaurant and bar named Luna Park has operated on the south end of the pavilion during the summer months.

The proposed redesign would bring phase out the Luna Park site and put a restaurant inside an upgraded pavilion. A kitchen and extra storage space would be added underground and an elevator would be installed. The new space would be orientated both to the south across an expanded playground, and to the north across the plaza that houses the farmer’s market.

To illustrate what the new concession could be worth to the city, the parks commissioner of Manhattan, William Castro, said the owners of Luna Park paid the city about $183,000 for its licensing fee in 2005. Mr. Castro estimated that with the taxes it pays and its benefit to surrounding businesses, the current concession brings about $5 million a year to the city’s coffers. The tax proceeds go into its general fund.

By the end of this year, Mr. Castro said the city would put out a request for proposals for potential pavilion tenants.

Mr. Castro indicated that the tenant would have to pay for the build out of the restaurant space, and he said the Parks Department would require that the concession offer take-away food. He also said the Parks Department could require that the food be “reasonably priced.”

Should the plan go forward, the city would pay for about $8 million of the project and a private building improvement district, the Union Square Partnership, would pay the remainder from privately raised funds. An anonymous source has already contributed $5 million for the park.

Some park advocates and elected leaders have suggested that because the donor is anonymous, it creates the appearance that the donor is interested in securing the license for the concession.

Yesterday, a community board member asked Mr. Castro to disclose the source of the donation, but the commissioner declined. Mr. Castro would only say that the donation was made for the entire renovation project, not just the restaurant.

A former city parks commissioner, Henry Stern, supports the plan. He said yesterday that park defenders are often too quick to oppose encroachments, even if they are beneficial to the community. “There is opposition to everything now; there is a climate of skepticism. I’m for the restaurant. It brings life to the park. It brings people in. All the great parks have restaurants in them,” Mr. Stern said.

Mr. Stern said the revenue generated from the restaurant’s lease should be reinvested in the Parks Department’s budget instead of the city’s general fund.

“That money goes into the bottomless pit of the general fund, where it is commingled with $50 billion,” Mr. Stern said. “When it is an outside revenue source from a business, parks should be compensated for the encroachment, no matter how minor it is.”